CHAMPCAR/CART: Labonte wins Driver Of The Year honors

Bobby Labonte,
who parlayed consistency and four victories into the Winston Cup
Championship, added another honor today as he was selected DRIVER OF THE
YEAR for all American motorsports.
Labonte, 36, driver of the Joe Gibbs/Interstate Batteries...

Bobby Labonte,
who parlayed consistency and four victories into the Winston Cup
Championship, added another honor today as he was selected DRIVER OF THE
YEAR for all American motorsports.

Labonte, 36, driver of the Joe Gibbs/Interstate Batteries Pontiac on the
NASCAR/Winston Cup tour, gathered seven votes from a panel of 16 motorsports
media to win the most prestigious award in motorsports.

A brief field of who's who in American motorsports was strung out behind the
Corpus Christi, Texas native.

The World of Outlaws
Steve Kinser
and NHRA Funny Car drag racer
John Force
each received three first-place nods, while CART's
Juan Montoya
had two and
that sanctioning body champion,
Gil de Ferran,
had one.

Labonte also carried the fan vote, which was featured for the first time on
ESPN.com. Running a very close second was NHRA's Funny Car Champion John
Force.

While winning four races Labonte led the Winston Cup points from the
California race on and had 18 top fives and 23 top tens while clinching the
championship at the Homestead-Miami race with still one event to go.

"Winning DRIVER OF THE YEAR is certainly an honor, especially when you look
back at the great drivers who have been selected, " Labonte says.

"This wouldn't have been possible however, without Joe Gibbs Racing and its
127 employees and especially crew chief Jimmy Makar and Interstate Batteries
and their support."

Labonte was asked for the key race of the year, "I guess I would say
Darlington (was pivotal) because we were just kind of cruising along there,
" Labonte says.

"We hadn't run but a couple of laps in practice when we had that crash.
Talk about going from one extreme to the other in a matter of seconds...we
thought we were pretty good to disaster to starting over again and working
our way back up and winning the race. I thought that was just awesome."

No overview of DRIVER OF THE YEAR would be complete without a word from
Labonte team owner
Joe Gibbs
on the season.

Here's what he says: "During my last (of three) Super Bowls I was standing
next to Charles Manning and he said that the fun was getting there. When I
think back the similarity is so close between this and football. It's the
best people in the world trying to do something," Gibbs says.

"Over here it took nine years. In football I think we went to three Super
Bowls in nine years. It's very hard and you have to have a group of
dedicated people. You have to have great pit stops, office people, shop
people and engineering, etc.

"What I think is so great about this sport is that you can't buy it. It's
chemistry."

While Labonte didn't win a quarterly vote - those went to Mark Martin, Juan
Montoya, Rusty Wallace and Tony Stewart - his consistency paid off with the
DRIVER OF THE YEAR HONOR.